Against interpretive exclusivism*

Abstract

Interpretive exclusivism is the dogma that we can only understand cultural systems by interpreting them, thereby ruling out causal explanations of cultural phenomena using scientific methods, for example based on measurement, comparison, and experiment. In this article, I argue that the costs of interpretive exclusivism are heavy and the benefits illusory. I make the case instead for an interactionist approach in which interpretive and scientific approaches work together on an equal footing. Although such approaches are neither easy nor cheap, I argue that they are necessary to improve the intellectual ambition, comparative breadth, and practical relevance of anthropology as a discipline. In all these ways, incorporating rather than excluding scientific methods would improve the long‐term prospects of anthropology as a flourishing field of research and teaching.